Welcome to Heardmont

Brimming with Books

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Meredith

Hey everybody! I hope you had an awesome weekend!

We’ve been fiddling around with our new Ikea bookshelves lately and wanted to show you the results so far. Once the bookcases were built and we’d determined the shelf spacing we wanted, we brought out all our books and accessories and started filling them up. Here are a few shots of the process (excuse the poor night-time lighting!).

This stage took a lot of trial and error to see what looked best on which shelf. I was totally shocked to see how much shelf space we had leftover after bring out stacks and stacks of books.

I originally wanted to display our globe on the top of the shelves, but after seeing it in place it just looked awkward. Maybe someday we’ll have a globe collection on top of those shelves, but not today!

We worked and swapped and fiddled until we came up with this arrangement. Since the shelves have stayed like this for a few days, I think we’re both happy with this setup for now. Later down the line, I’d like to add some baskets and natural textures to break up all that color.

The shelves are filled with a mix of novels, non-fiction books, textbooks, art, photographs, and accessories. Since we don’t have enough books to fill every shelf, it was nice to get to add some personality and height-variation with the accessories.

This is probably my favorite shelf: a piece of art handmade by Mr. Heard, three new design books (The Domino Book of Decorating is AMAZING, by the way) and a cute white ceramic vase.

The right-hand bookcase is the one I think of as Stephen’s bookcase, since it was where most of the books from his office ended up. I love how the colors came together in this section with the yellows, greens, and reds. The line of neutral books on that third shelf was a nice break from the primary colors, too.

Instead of showing all the spines of our Chronicles of Narnia series, I turned the box so the image on the side was showing. It’s easy for bookshelves to start to look busy, so this was one way to break things up a bit.

These are the shelves that may still see some tweaking. I’m thinking about turning the really mis-matched books 180 degrees so just the pages are showing. That might give us another break from the color overload going on here. Can bookshelves get too colorful? I think ours are getting there.

Once the shelves were somewhat organized, we were left with a gap on the end of the wall by our sliding glass door.

Luckily we had a chair to fill the spot. I’m thinking a small floor lamp or hanging pendant over this chair would create a cute little reading nook.

So that’s where were are with the bookshelves. I definitely have a greater appreciation now for designers who can make bookshelves look completely effortless and organic. Believe it or not, it takes a lot of work!

Have you tried staging shelves before? Was it harder than it looked?

Posted in art, Before and After, living room | Tagged Hemnes bookshelf | 8 Comments

Couch City

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Meredith

Happy Friday, friends! Today was a big day for the Heards. I successfully finished my first week back to school and Stephen had his last day at his old job. What a great way to end the week!

In between studying and working, we’ve been doing a little furniture moving. Here’s a place I like to call Couch City (formerly known as our living room) that we visited a few days ago.

Lots happening in this photo – a preview of our new bookshelves, evidence that I really am working on math-y stuff, and couches getting moved from one room to another (and possibly back again). I know it’s not our typical “look at this pretty thing we made” post, but this is sometimes how our real life looks.

Here’s to a relaxing weekend, spending time with friends, and great things in the week to come! Happy Friday and thanks for reading.

Posted in For Fun, living room | 4 Comments

Pillow Pizzaz

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Meredith

My mom and I were out fabric shopping a couple weekends ago when I came across this lovely cotton print at Joann’s. It had a great hand-painted feel to it and immediately grabbed my attention since it was basically our living room color scheme in fabric form.

I picked up a yard of the fabric for $6 and whipped up a quick pillow for our high-backed living room chair.

This side of the room has been feeling a little flat ever since we took down our Christmas decor, so this pillow was a great inexpensive way to add some pizzaz. By the way, isn’t that peacock pillow an attention hog? It shows up everywhere!

For the new square pillow, I just sewed an envelope-style pillow cover for a down pillow form I already had. Want to make your own? Here’s a quick and easy tutorial (from a loooong time ago).

Hope you like our newest living room addition! In other news, I survived my first day back to school yesterday and then showed three houses afterwards. Whew! Wish me luck on day two today.

Posted in Crafts, living room | Tagged blue and brown pillow, easy pillow cover | 5 Comments

Soy Votive Candles

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Meredith

Hi y’all. Welcome to the site where “that girl keeps rambling on about gifts she made for that holiday that was, like, a month ago.”

In all seriousness, it was quite the homemade Christmas for us this year. DIY jewelry, herb-kits, throw blankets, and a whole lotta candles came out of our little Christmas factory in December.

This may be the last present I have to share, and it’s another simple candle gift with a twist. I came across these red and green votive holders in a nice wooden base at a local shop and knew they’d be perfect for one of my girl friends.

Since I already had candle-making supplies, I decided to go the extra mile and fill the votive holders with homemade scented candles.

I added the wicks just like I did in our Soy Christmas Candle Tutorial.

Then I filled the votives with the melted wax, scented with Cran-Apple Spice.

The process was very easy and resulted in a nice set of candles (no store-bought tea lights required). I’ve mentioned before that we’re big fans of complete gifts, not ones that require additional purchases to use, so pre-filling these votives with candles was the perfect solution.

The best part is that once the candles have burned out, she can still use the votive holders with tea lights next year!

I’ll admit I have several sets of votives floating around the house that could use some inexpensive homemade candle magic. Do you?

Posted in Crafts, Holidays | Tagged christmas votives, homemade candles, soy candles | 5 Comments

Easy DIY Throw

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Meredith

Instead of the Friday Five today, I wanted share an easy throw blanket I made for a Christmas gift this year. You might remember this Razorback throw blanket I made for my grandpa last year.

This fall I came across some similar wool fabric in a beautiful light gray snowflake pattern and decided to make a feminine version of the blanket above for Stephen’s stepmom.

The process is so easy, it’s virtually one step.

I bought 2 yards of this wide wool fabric (typically used to make suits and winter coats). On the edges where the fabric was cut, I made sure the cut was straight, folded the edge over twice, and pinned it in place.

Then it was as easy as stitching the hem in place (I used a zig zag stitch), and the blanket was done! Instead of hemming the edges, you could also choose to add trim of any sort to hide the raw edges.

You can see below how the hemmed edges blend into the rest of the blanket and the salvage edges were left exactly as they came off the bolt.

Paired with some gourmet hot chocolate, this makes quite the easy Christmas or winter birthday gift! This was such a simple project that I think I’m going to run down to the fabric store this weekend and make one for myself.

If you’re planning on doing the same, here’s a tip. Don’t pay full price for this kind of fabric. It can usually run $9.99 to $19.99 a yard, but with a coupon you’ll only pay half that. I think the fabric I used for this blanket only cost $14 or so with a coupon.

Cause I love ya, here are this week’s ads and coupons for Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and JoAnn’s.

Happy Blanket-Making!

Posted in Crafts, Holidays | Tagged DIY throw blanket, gift idea, razorback blanket | 5 Comments

I never thought I’d buy another backpack… for myself.

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Meredith

We’re starting the new year off with lots of changes here at Heardmont. Since yesterday we talked a little about Stephen’s work and exciting new job opportunities, I figured today was a good one to talk about mine!

As of Monday, it’s official. I’m going back to school!

I’m enrolled in the Ph.D. Math program at the University of Arkansas and plan to teach at the university level when I get my degree. I’m going to keep my real estate license active and continue to help friends and family buy and sell in Northwest Arkansas, but I’ll also be helping out as a Graduate Assistant in the math department and stretching my brain further than I ever thought I would.

That Calculus book you saw yesterday? I’ll be using that one to dust all the math cobwebs out of my brain in the next few months!

Am I excited? Yes!
Am I nervous? HECK yes!
Do I have a classy new backpack that makes me feel all grown up? Yep!

Stephen and I will both be busier than usual over the coming months, so we’ll probably scale back the posts on our blog to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays instead of every weekday. We still have lots of house and yard projects planned though, so don’t you worry that Heardmont is going to get boring!

This morning I’m off to another session of “How to Teach Precalculus” in preparation for my first semester of grad school, which starts Monday! Wish me luck.

Posted in Real Estate | 23 Comments

Better than Billy

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Meredith

Before today’s post, Stephen and I both wanted to extend a huge THANK YOU to everybody who commented on our little HGTV announcement yesterday. You are a huge part of the reason why we shared our bathroom makeover in the first place, and your support means the world to us!

~~~

I typically don’t talk about our work life on the blog, but Stephen’s job sometimes requires him to travel. Since his company consults for a huge retail chain, his trips usually take him to exciting destinations like Indiana or Louisiana or Texas, where he spends 10-12 hours a day inside said retail stores, fixing issues with their refrigeration systems.

His most recent trip took him to Dallas, and since Dallas fits the “6 hours or less by car” criteria, he rented a car and drove instead of flying. I call it fate that he got upgraded to an SUV instead of a tiny little rental car on this particular trip. Can you guess why?

Dallas happens to be the closest Ikea to us, and my sweet husband took time out of his busy schedule to pick up a few Ikea goodies while he was in town!

His most exciting purchases by far were three of these.

If you’re an Ikea addict or if you’ve just been listening to us ramble on about built-ins and bookcases for entirely too long, you’ve probably guessed that those boxes contain 3 new bookcases for our living room!

We chose the Hemnes Ikea bookshelves in white because we loved their subtle style. They give the look of built-ins without all the work, and they’re solid wood. Nothing against the ever-popular Billy bookcase, but we didn’t want particleboard since these shelves will be getting a lot of use. We’re hoping the solid-wood versions will last a really long time!

Clearing the wall, assembling the shelves, and moving them into place was a breeze. First we moved all the furniture.

Can you believe how different this side of the living room looks without all that stuff?

Next Stephen got to work assembling the first bookcase while I organized all the nuts and bolts and read the instructions.

The instructions tell you to raise the bookcase up on books before attaching the top piece. Stephen thought you’d get a kick out of seeing which four books we used.

I can’t even pretend these textbooks are all Stephen’s. Two of those are mine. Nerds!

There were just a few bumps along the way, most notably that one of the holes for assembling the top of one bookcase wasn’t drilled out. We spent probably five minutes trying to figure out why that screw wouldn’t go in!

After we got the process down for the first shelf, it only took about 45 minutes total to assemble the next two.

One shelf.

Two shelves.

Three!

We took these photos at night so they’re not the best, but I couldn’t wait to share! You know we’ve been having lots of fun organizing all our books on these shelves since we finished them. Once we’ve got an arrangement we like, I’ll show you the fully finished result.

What do you think of our new shelves so far?

The little epilogue to our story is that Stephen’s trip to Dallas to pick these bad boys up will be his last work trip with his current company. Yesterday he accepted a new position with an energy consulting firm which starts in two weeks, and he gets to work from home! I’m so proud of him!

Posted in Before and After, Furniture, living room | Tagged Billy bookcase, Dallas, Hemnes, IKEA, white bookcases, white bookshelf | 14 Comments

Our Bathroom Hits the Big Time

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Meredith

Hi Friends!

Despite it being Monday, today is an exciting day around here. A few weeks ago, Liz Gray, a writer for HGTV.com, contacted me for permission to feature our master bathroom makeover photos on the site. I was browsing around last night, and realized our photos were live!

You can see our bathroom photos, along with several other “Unbelievable Budget Bathrooms” by following this link. We’re photos 5-7!

Stephen and I are so excited and humbled to be featured alongside other bloggers’ gorgeous bathroom makeovers, like this one from 4 Men 1 Lady. A huge thanks to Liz for the write-up!

Did anything exciting happen in your life this weekend?

Posted in Featured, master bath | Tagged HGTV.com, master bathroom makeover | 31 Comments

Friday Five

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Meredith

Happy Friday everybody! Today’s Friday Five is going to be a little bit different. One of my favorite blogs, Desire to Inspire, is doing a round-up of their 2011 house tours by room. So far we’ve seen dining rooms, kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms, and today I wanted to share my favorite 5 images from the past week.

1. I love that this modern kitchen doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s just enough color and quirk to make it fun, and the vintage CAFE sign seals the deal for me.

2. Homes with soaring ceilings and wide open spaces can often feel cold and impersonal, but the dining room in this home is downright cozy! Isn’t that swing bench fun?

3. When it comes to design, I have a bit of a split personality. One side of me loves light and airy rooms with lots of frill and floral fabrics, but then the other side sees masculine rooms like this and wants to replace every piece of art in our home with black & white photography and every bit of painted furniture with vintage wood. It’s an inner battle for sure.

4. See what I mean? This dining room is the definition of masculine. It’s crazy and I love it!

5. To completely confuse my brain, here’s an example of that light and bright look I love just as much. It’s so simple and sweet. Can you imagine how serene this bedroom would be in person?

What about you? Do you tend more towards bright, colorful spaces, light rooms with lots of neutrals, or darker, more masculine settings? For tons more inspiration, check out Desire to Inspire for the complete favorite room round-ups.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody!

(Click on any photo above to go to its source.)

Posted in Friday Five, Home Decor | 6 Comments

Hand-Stamped Herb Labels

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Meredith

I wasn’t kidding when I said we got a ton of use out of our metal stamps this year. I saw the idea for these hand-stamped herb labels in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. The set was made from vintage butter knives, with the stamping on the blade of the knife, and cost $35. A great gift idea, but I knew I could make my own for less!

After lots of thrift store scouting, I came across a drawer full of mismatched stainless steel cutlery begging for a makeover. The stamp set would have been much easier to use on silver knives, but with a little extra muscle I was able to make my mark on these stainless ones as well.

Instead of stamping the herb names on the blade of the knives, I chose to stamp them on the handles instead. I figured they would be easier to insert into the dirt that way and the handle was what made each label unique – why not show it off?

I made two sets of labels, one for my mom and one for Stephen’s. I used the same Sharpie + acetone technique to make the letters darker as I did on Rachel’s necklace and the little girl lockets (method via Brooklyn Limestone). To wrap the herb markers, I sewed a little red fleece pouch and tied it shut with a bit of lime green ribbon.